Abstract
Jews also played a special role as "consultants" in the American temperance movement. During the 1830s, per capita consumption of liquor (which had reached extraordinarily high levels in the early 19th century) declined markedly in America as more and more citizens voluntarily signed temperance pledges. Reform did not come fast enough for anti-liquor crusaders, however, and by 1840 many came to advocate "total temperance" (teetotalism) and a "dry America." Temperance leaders, who formerly had confined themselves to attacking the baleful effects of "spiritous liquors," lashed out against beer and wine as well. They also entered the political arena by seeking to impose legal restrictions on liquor. State prohibition laws multiplied in the 1850s. As temperance advocates broadened their attack to include wine, this posed a problem. Wine, after all, was praised in the Bible. It was featured prominently in such New Testament episodes as the marriage at Cana, where Jesus turned water into wine for the wedding guests (John 2:1-11), and the Last Supper, where Jesus tells the apostles to drink wine "for this is my blood of the covenant," (Matthew 26:27-29). Wine was also used by most churchmen in communion services. Attacking it was not the same as attacking the use of distilled liquor. Even writers in the religions press charged that the "Total Abstinence doctrine" stood "opposed to the teachings of the Saviour." It should come as no surprise that American Jews found themselves drawn into these debates -- owing to their reputed expertise in scriptural matters. Temperance advocates turned first to an "expert" named Mordecai M. Noah, the best known American Jew of his day -- journalist, politician, diplomat, playwright -- best remembered for his abortive plan to found a Jewish colony named Ararat on Grand Island, New York, in 1825. He was asked a deceptively simple question: What kind of wine did Jews use at the "Feast of Passover"? Passover was of course the "feast" that Jesus was thought to have been celebrating during the Last Supper, so the answer -- assuming, as so many Evangelical Christians did, that contemporary Jewish practices reflected ancient ones -- could simultaneously shed light on two issues: first, the meaning of wine in the Pentateuch; and second, the kind of wine used at the Passover seder celebrated by Jesus with his disciples.